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Meet Felipe Roldan of Simon’s Hot Dogs in Scottsdale

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Felipe Roldan.

Felipe, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Me and my wife used to be in Real Estate when the market crashed in 2008. We lost everything, our jobs, life savings, home, car and credit. This situation forced us to move from Las Vegas to Sedona where my Mom was able to help us with our newborn son Simon. We decided to start over, believing that our passion for cooking could help us to be successful in the restaurant business. With no previous experience in the restaurant business, we took the chance selling Colombian style hot dogs.

At the beginning was not easy, first because the budget was limited, my brother lend us $10,000, that was our investment to set up the business and for living expenses for the early months, and second because this was a new concept of hot dogs with toppings, like the Colombian, with pineapple, mozzarella cheese, Simon’s sauce and crushed potato chips on top, people thought it was weird, but gradually people started to try them and liked them and began spreading the word about Simon’s Hot Dogs.

We rent the little kitchen inside of the Oak Creek Brewery. Rita and Fred were beautiful angels that help us a lot in those critical moments. The Colombian hot dogs started to call people attention; even Arizona Highways featured us on their April 2011 issue, as one of the 25 best restaurants of the year in Arizona and that help us immensely.

People start looking for us from all over the world. It was great, however, we wanted to grow our business and in order to do that we wanted to open our own location and moved to Phoenix was the best option at the moment. We try so hard to find a way to keep our Sedona location open but it was not possible, then in May 2015 we closed it and moved down to the valley to relocate Simon’s.

In December 2015 we opened our new location in Scottsdale, AZ, we moved from a closet site space (72 sq. ft.) to a 1500 sq. ft. restaurant (It was so scary but exciting).

Our biggest help to rebuild our name were our customers; we are blessed always with the love and support of them. They were always checking when we were going to open again and where. They help us to spread the word about our new location.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has been really difficult especially because we opened a business with little money and forced us to leave our comfort zone and learn to grow the business without any money to advertise, use word of mouth and social media. We had to do it in Sedona, and again in Scottsdale after 6 months closed and no income. In addition, for the same reason, we have always been in difficult hidden locations where the rent is low, but with the problem of no pedestrian traffic.

We have been working really hard all this time to gain awareness of our restaurant. Thankfully we have been very lucky to have my brother that believes in us and always supports our ideas and great customers that have made everything in their hands to spread the word about Simon’s.

Simon’s Hot Dogs – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We offer Colombian Style Beef, Pork and Vegan Hot Dogs with unusual tasty toppings, among other Colombian appetizers. We are customer oriented, always looking for ways to enhance our customer dining experience.

We are very proud of all the achievements we have made, first of all, starting from zero to a place where people recommend us to their friends and family. Second: Our employees who work hard to make sure that people truly enjoy their experience at Simon’s. Third to know that, after losing everything, we are able to continue growing in new, exciting and unexpected ways.

What set us apart from others is that we offer the same food experience for meat eaters, vegetarians and vegans alike. Regardless of people dietary preferences they can enjoy all our hot dogs without limitations.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
For me, success consists in creating a profitable business that offers our customers excellent and tasty food; and have people who enjoy working with us, because we care not only for the welfare and growth of all our employees, but also the well being of their family members and community where we operate.

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Image Credit:
Clydesdale Manhattan

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